4 minute read
Radio Check
In this issue "Mastering the Machine, " tactics, techniques, procedures, and technology have all developed immensely since the beginning of rotary wing aviation. We develop with the times, technological advancements, and to the adversary we are facing to name a few contributing factors.
What groundbreaking advancements have you seen in your time? How have you seen mission sets develop over the course of your career? Where do you see room for improvement in how we operate today?
In 1961, I'm flying a HUP-3 (H-25) across West Texas to deliver it to Helicopter Utility Squadron One (HU-1), Ream Field, flying under the cloud cover, about 75 ft, when I inadvertently enter the clouds. It's terrifying, as the HUP is unstable. Soon my crewman says, “we've lost the forward transmission,” as oil poured onto the leg of his flight suit. Suddenly, in front of us is the ground, we're heading down. I do a quick pull up, set the helo down, and we secure it, walk a half of a mile back on the road, and spend the night in Kent, TX. We had (I had) dumped the nose enough that the pan under the transmission had spilled all over my crewman. It was an unnerving experience, flying an unstable machine, inadvertently entering the clouds, recovering control, and landing safely.
Let us not forget..."flying the beast." I investigated several aerial accidents in my time and "pilot error" often sounded loud and clear.
My first squadron was HMM-361. We were based at MCAH Tustin, California in one of the blimp hangars. We had 24 UH-34Ds. We were anticipating orders to South Vietnam, but we were interrupted by the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were ordered to deploy out of San Diego aboard the USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7). We sailed down the West Coast, through the Panama Canal, and sat off of Haiti preparing for a possible assault of Cuba. Thankfully it didn't occur as casualties were estimated to be high. After the squadron returned to Tustin, we intensified our flight training, flying various simulated assault missions. Our skipper got a kick out of calling El Toro Tower that he was inbound with a helicopter flight of 24 UH-34s!
We deployed to South Vietnam in 1963 on a KC-135 out of El Toro, stopping in Hawaii to refuel, and then Cubi Point, PI. After a few days, we were flown to DaNang, South Vietnam aboard a Marine KC-130. At the time, there were no jet aircraft operating north of Saigon due to runway limitations and very few other aircraft. The squadron was billeted in an old French Base about a mile from the runway. Our UH-34s had been delivered by a sister squadron which rotated back to Cubi Point. We were only in South Vietnam a few weeks when the U.S. Air Force lost a T-28 on a mission west near Laos. We launched two UH-34s with a rescue crew at dusk. The two UH-34s didn't return, and our skipper flew out to the area the T-28 went down the next day and searched. He located remains of the two UH-34s next to a steep river gorge. My skipper came back and initiated a rescue/recovery mission with Vietnamese troops and U.S. special forces. We lost four pilots. two aircrew, a flight surgeon, and a corpsman. The recovery was difficult because of dense jungle and just a small island to land on in the river.
The next time I went to South Vietnam in 1969, I was flying CH-46s and the war had totally changed. The squadron I joined was at Quang Tri, 15 miles south of the DMZ.
Next Radio Check Question:
No legends started out that way and most never intended to be legends at all. Some are world renown, while others are only recognized in their own spheres of influence.
Who are those individuals that made our naval rotary wing community what it is today? What qualities make a legend? Have the qualities we value in those we hold at the highest regard changed over the years? Who are our modern-day legends and how do they differ from our legends of the past?
We want to hear from you! Please send your responses to the Rotor Review Editor-in-Chief at the email address listed below.
LT Annie “Frizzle” Cutchen Editor-in-Chief, Rotor Review annie.cutchen@gmail.com
